On the one hand we’ve got the Serbians crying foul and claiming it’s illegal, on the other we’ve got the US, and no doubt soon the UK, France and Germany recognising it. They had a free and fair (I assume?) referendum, the ‘split’ vote won, so they split.
If a referendum is not enough, what would be unequivocally legal? Or is there no such thing as unequivocally legal? Is it all just a matter of interpretation? I would have thought that secession would be specifically covered in international law, if anything is!
It’s not a question of legality. It is a matter of whether Kosovo has the ability to maintain control over the area it claims, and whether it receives support and recognition from enough key nations.
Yes. The American colonies became independent in defiance of British law. If the red coats had been able to defeat the rebels, then the independence would have failed. Does Serbia have armed forces that can bring Kosovo back into the fold?
It’s illegal in the sense that it won’t be recognized as a legitimate state by the United Nations, owing to the Russian veto. I don’t know what difference such non-recognition by the UN makes in international law.
I think so. Also, I don’t see why Russia really cares that much about Kosovo, other than that the Serbians are Serbs. Just let them try to be an independent state, and see what happens. As long as the Serbs in Kosovo are treated fairly.
Yes, but that’s where the Big Five then play politics – Russia can just say something to the effect of “let anyone who may some time int he future need someting passed in the Security Council, think about it”.
In any case, as mentioned, outside of the legal system of the state being seceded from (where it is usually either forbidden outright or made so hard to achieve by lawful means it’s the same effect), secession is neither legal nor illegal: it’s succesful or unsuccesful.
International bodies have been stuck with the very interesting doctrinal conundrum that on the one hand, they hold “a People’s right to self-determination and sovereignty” as absolute and inalienable, yet OTOH insisting that no matter who’s stuck on what side of the line, borderlines dating as far as immediately post-WW2 and the states founded using those borders upon the dissolution of the colonial empires, are intrinsecally sacrosanct and must remain inviolate (or at most, that former federative entities like the USSR, Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia must fragment exactly along the previously organized top-level federative lines and no further, i.e. Georgia yes, Abkhazia no). Kosovo seems to be the start of a move away from that latter doctrine, and it worries many states that harbor their own secessionist movements.
“A rebellion is always legal in the first person, such as ‘our rebellion.’ It is only in the third person - ‘their rebellion’ - that it becomes illegal.” - Ben Franklin’s character in 1776
Given the bloody history of that region, I’d doubt that most of them would care. Certain groups of folks seem to think that killing their neighbors is an acceptable hobby.
I’m just curious, what does this mean for the Albanian rebels in Macedonia? There were (and still are, from a quick Google search) ethnic flare-ups with ethnic Albanian fighters in Macedonia, especially around 2001-2002. Does this risk destabilizing the situation with them at all, or is have the tensions pretty much died down?
Under what laws was it illegal? That was before the United Nations and even before the League of Nations, so I’m wondering how it can be called either legal or illegal. Note that I am not justifying it; I just have difficulties in general with the actions of nations being called “illegal” without there being a body with some authority over those nations (like the UN or L of N).
It’s not like international law sprang into being fully-formed as Athena from the brow of Zeus with the establishment of the LoN or the UN. Nation-states dealt with each other for, well, the entire history of nation-states that happened before those two bodies.